


Lost (But Not For Long)

by speccygeekgrrl



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Gen, Kinga returns the favor, Major character death doesn't stick with the TV's guys, Max and Frank get to chat, Max saves Kinga, handwavy mad science hijinks, second banana heaven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-05 14:42:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12191913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/pseuds/speccygeekgrrl
Summary: If Max is going to die, at least he'll do it for a good cause. He doesn't expect a brief interlude in Second Banana Heaven before being unceremoniously resurrected, though.





	Lost (But Not For Long)

**Author's Note:**

> Kinga's dialogue in the beginning was stolen from an angst prompt post on Tumblr. I don't usually do angst. I'm not even sure this qualifies as angst, honestly, but hey, here's a thing, I hope it's enjoyable to read.

"Max... Max! I know this hurts but I need you to stay awake." Awake? Was he awake? He'd only felt this much pain before in his nightmares. Kinga put a hand on his cheek and tilted his head to make him look at her. "Don't close your eyes," she demanded. "You can't close your eyes." As if he'd want to close his eyes when he could see her. Her face was slightly singed, one cheek soot-stained. He tried to lift a hand to wipe the soot off but it seemed like that wasn't something he could do just then. A tear streaked down her cheek.

"Why are you sad?" he asked, or tried to ask. Where had his voice gone? She read his lips and her face crumpled.

"I'll bring you back," she promised, and-- oh. Oh, now he understood. What happened? He didn't remember how he got here on the floor, but... That warmth had to be blood soaking his chest, something was keeping him from getting a breath, and even though she'd told him not to close his eyes, his vision was narrowing until all he could see was her face. "I swear, Max. I'll bring you back."

She'd never done it before, but he believed her. He let his eyes fall shut.

Max never really developed any kind of beliefs about the afterlife. Religion had no place in his upbringing. He always sort of vaguely hoped for more than simple nonexistence, but he didn't really expect anything to happen after he died. He _definitely_ didn't expect to open his eyes in a very bright and clean version of Deep 13, on the couch in front of the TV with a crick in his neck. "Ugh..." He rolled his head and winced at the way his neck pulled, reaching up to rub it.

"I was wondering when you'd get here," Frank said, and Max yelped and turned to face his father on the other side of the couch. "Easy, tiger. Welcome to Second Banana Heaven."

"I'm dead?" Max looked around curiously and then his gaze fixed on the TV, which was displaying Kinga kneeling over-- yeah, Max was dead. That just wasn't survivable. "Jeez, how did that even happen?"

"Don't worry about it," Frank said, putting a hand on his son's shoulder. "This might be it for you, kiddo. I didn't come here until the very last time."

"No," Max said. "She'll bring me back. She promised. I believe her."

"You have a lot of faith in her."

"You had a lot of faith in Dr. F," Max said, "and he always brought you back." 

"He didn't want to be a single father," Frank said, but he was smiling.

"You loved him."

"Yeah, I did."

"Do you think he loved you?"

"I'm sure of it." Frank cocked his head slightly, watching Kinga pull bloodsoaked fabric away from the mess that had been made of Max's chest. "Do you think she loves you?"

"I'm not sure," Max said. "I... I don't think so. Probably not."

"But you love her."

"Hopelessly." Max shrugged, eyes fixed on the TV. Kinga swiped the back of her hand across her eyes, wiping away her tears, and left a streak of Max's blood on one cheek and the side of her nose. She was still crying, and her tears cut a path through the crimson smudge, dripping pinkly down the rest of her cheek. "I don't think she loves me, but... I think she cares a little."

"That's enough, at the start," Frank said. "Clay only cared a little the first time he brought me back."

"I don't want to die as many times as you did," Max admitted, finally looking away from the spectacle of his own death. "I made it this far without doing it once."

"That's cute," Frank said, and Max scowled at him. "I was practically your age the first time he killed me. Just because it hasn't happened until now doesn't mean you're not going to do it more."

"She's not that much like her dad," Max said, but he didn't sound sure about it and Frank gave him a pitying look. "She didn't do this on purpose."

"Are you sure?"

"She wouldn't have reacted like she did if she'd done it on purpose... would she?"

"You'd know better than I would."

"I've never seen her cry before. Ever." He chewed on one knuckle thoughtfully, looking back at the TV. Kinga wasn't crying any more, but she looked devastated as she ordered around some Boneheads. They picked up Max's body carefully and she followed them, staring down at her bloodstained hands instead of her second banana's corpse. "She... she has to care, she wouldn't cry if she didn't care." 

"They never cry in front of us until it's too late," Frank said, and he nudged Max's shoulder. "You must have been doing a great job to end up here. Second Banana Heaven isn't for just any sidekick."

"What happened, though?" Max asked. He stood up to go poke at the TV. "Can I rewind? I want to see how I got here."

"Sit back down, it'll show you what you want to see if you focus." Max sat back down and squinted at the TV, which went black for a moment and then resolved into a picture with a timestamp: Kinga at her work table in the lab, Max fetching something from cold storage a few feet away. Then the timestamp started counting and the image spun into motion. On the screen, Kinga turned to look at him as he approached, and the cuff of her jacket caught the dial of the bunsen burner and turned it up high. The flask in front of her started to bubble, and Max flung out one arm to push her behind him, reaching to fix the flame a second too late to do any good. The flask exploded right in front of him, glass shards burying into his flesh as the blast sent him flat on his back on the floor. His head hit the ground hard, eyes wide and staring up at the ceiling. Kinga fell to her knees beside him, one hand turning his head to look at her, and okay, he knew what happened after that.

"Well," he said, and didn't really have anything else to say. He glanced at his father to find Frank looking awed and proud.

"Good job, Max. Wow, you died _for_ her, no wonder you made it here." Frank clasped Max's shoulder. "I'm proud of you, son. That was all instinct and it was exactly the right thing to do."

"It couldn't have been exactly the right thing to do if I'm dead," Max said, and Frank shrugged.

"Kind of a Kobayashi Maru," he said. "You saved her, though."

"Worth it," Max said with a wistful smile. "I guess now I just have to wait to see if she can save me back?" 

"I wouldn't watch if I were you," Frank said. "Unless your tolerance for gore has increased a lot since the last time I saw you."

"Give me a break, I was young and innocent then and neither of those things are true any more." That didn't mean Max wasn't going to listen to his father's advice. He could do without seeing whatever scientific witchcraft Kinga needed to perpetrate to resurrect him, as long as she could get the job done without him... although she'd had him at her side for almost all the major scientific breakthroughs she'd ever made, so maybe he was shit out of luck this time. No, he believed in her. If she gave a damn, she wouldn't give up, and it seemed like she gave at least half a damn.

"What have the two of you been doing? I've tried to keep an eye on you, but I'm kind of busy taking souls... or trying to, anyways."

"Oh, you know. Tampering in God's domain, creating new forms of life... although they're not as impressive as she hoped they'd be... we resurrected dinosaurs, that was fun... oh, we restarted Mystery Science Theater 3000!" Frank's eyes widened.

"You what? No kidding?"

"Yeah, Kinga thought a nostalgia-based cash grab would be a sure thing."

"And?"

"She was wrong," Max said with a shrug. "Netflix is dragging their heels about renewal. The fans are crazy devoted, but try telling that to corporate. They don't care."

"Ah, they'll come around," Frank said. "I wish Clay knew about that, he'd be so proud."

"Do... do mad scientists not get an afterlife?" Max asked a little hesitantly. "What happens to them when they die?"

"I think most of them just go to hell," Frank said. "But Clay didn't."

"What happened to him, then?"

"I don't know. I've been checking every afterlife I can get through the door into, I still haven't found him."

"Well, wasn't he an atheist? What happens to atheists?" Frank lifted one warning finger and pointed it at Max.

"That can't be what happened to him," Frank said firmly. "Because in that case he's gone forever."

"...so it could have happened to him and you just don't want it to be true," Max said, and Frank sighed heavily and dropped his hand.

"Come on, kiddo, it's not nice to poke your old man's fears like that."

"I'm sorry. I'm just... wondering what'll happen to Kinga. What would have happened if I hadn't been fast enough today."

"Don't worry about it," Frank said. "Because your worrying won't change anything."

"Oh, please, like that's ever stopped me?" 

"Are you still as lost inside your own head as you were when you were little?" Max snorted a laugh.

"No. I'm so much worse now. You have no idea. But my worrying has saved her life before, so it's worth it." His eyes widened and he put a hand on his chest when a stabbing pain went through him. "Whoa, ouch. What the hell?"

"She's trying already," Frank said. "I should warn you now, it's going to suck out loud when she brings you back. It always hurts like crazy, every time."

"One more reason I'd like to keep my number lower than yours," Max said, wincing as the pain got sharper and then ebbed away. "Still worth it if it means she cares enough to save me." He rubbed his chest for a moment, then sighed and let his hand drop. "Hey, Dad?"

"Yes, Max?"

"Is there-- I mean, what--" He paused, frowning, then tried again. "Do you wish you'd told me anything before you died?"

"Oh, all kinds of things," Frank said. "The number to my Swiss bank account, the location of that time capsule Clay buried when Kinga was born, the recipe for Grandma Ruth's Coke cake..."

"What, seriously?" Max was flabbergasted. Frank patted him on the shoulder.

"It doesn't matter what I tell you now. You're not going to remember any of this."

"If it doesn't matter then you might as well tell me the most important thing you know." He fixed Frank with a pleading look. Frank laughed.

"I know you're grown now but when you do that I can see the eight year old you used to be," he said. "Yeah, sure. You want to know the most important thing I can tell you?"

"Yes. Please."

"Don't give up," Frank said. "I loved Clay way before he had feelings for me, but he figured it out after a while. If Kinga doesn't have feelings for you-- although her reaction makes me doubt she doesn't have _any_ \-- give her more time. Maybe save her life a couple more times. Or let her save yours. Ideally a little of both."

"That... doesn't actually help," Max said. "Because that's basically my modus operandi already. I was never going to give up."

"That's my boy," Frank said fondly. "You never were a quitter."

"I--" The pain in his chest came back with a vengeance. Max doubled over, clutching his heart. "Ow!" He felt Frank pat his back.

"I think she's got you," Frank said. "It was good to see you, Max. Try not to blow yourself up again." Max couldn't catch a breath to make a reply. He closed his eyes and felt pain sink into his entire body.

"Max?" Kinga's voice was very soft. He turned his head slightly to hear her better, and heard her gasp. "Max! You-- oh my god, it worked!" He blinked his eyes open to find himself inside of one of the glass vats they'd grown the Boneheads in, up to his chin in nutrient fluid. Kinga was standing in front of him with her hand pressed to the glass. "Hi," she said, and he lifted a hand to press against hers.

"Hi." His head ached, a pounding soreness right at the back of his skull, and he resisted the urge to look down and find out what exactly was causing the screaming pain across the majority of his torso. Not as if he wanted to look away from her, anyways. She looked... happy to see him. That was rare. "What happened?" His voice was a rasp. 

"You saved my life and lost yours," she said. "But I brought you back. I told you I would." She still had soot and his blood on her face. It couldn't have taken her longer than a couple of hours to manage a miracle.

"I believed you," he said, and managed a smile through the absurd amount of pain he was in. "You figured it out."

"It's not the way Dad did it," she said, shaking her head slightly. "But this should leave you almost as good as new. I... may have flagrantly abused the power of stem cells. For a good cause."

"I'm not complaining," he said, and she smiled at him.

"Thank you. That would have shredded me. You... you didn't even think about it before you put yourself between me and the explosion."

"Well yeah. You're the most important thing. You've always been the most important thing." 

"You're important too," she said, and oh, that was better than morphine, hearing her say that. "You're... really important here. To me." 

"Worth it," he said, and she cocked an eyebrow at him.

"What?"

"Dying. Worth it, to hear you say that." She smacked her hand against the glass and gave him a snarky look.

"Don't make me take it back." 

"Don't make me die again to hear it again," he said, and moved his hand to match hers again. "Thank you. For keeping your promise."

"You're not allowed to die, we have too much still to do," she said, clearly trying to be a hardass again, but her eyes were soft on him. "You're going to have to stay in there for a while, though."

"Figured that," he said. "...think you could come keep me company now and then?"

"I was going to leverage your captive audience status to binge watch some stuff with you," she said. "I've heard good things about Bojack Horseman, think we could get through that?"

"I might need opiates if that's the plan," he said, and she smirked at him.

"Don't worry, Max. I've got you covered."


End file.
